LinkedIn gives $30K to employees helping communities around the world

LinkedIn has donated a total of $30,000 in grants to a dozen of the professional social network’s employees who are volunteering their off hours for various community causes around the world.

Originally launched in 2011, the company’s “Transformation Grant” program supports “their efforts to transform themselves, their families, their communities, and/or the world,” Daniel Shapero, a LinkedIn vice president, said in a blog post.

“In 2012, grant winners embarked on life-changing trips that involved building schools, helping family members, teaching programs, etc.,” he said. “Most inspiring, though, is that most of the grant winners were already embarking on these paths. The grants simply amplify their efforts.”

For example, LinkedIn said Brenda Muckle, a customer relationship manger based in London, plans to use her grants to donate two solar panels and three computers to a school in her native Kenya.

And Jeff Matthews, a sales director based in Dublin, Ireland, helped one non-profit group raise $30,000 in one-hour with an idea called “Calling for a Cause,” which lets non-profits use call centers during their down times. The grant will help expand the program.

And Joseph Roualdes, a senior corporate communications manager working in the Mountain View headquarters, plans to teach underprivileged children in Lembeh Straits in Indonesia to earn a scuba diving certification with the hope they can land higher paying jobs in the future and educate others about protecting endangered reefs.